Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Protective Regulations for the Oceanic Whitetip Shark (Carcharhinus longimanus)

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>50 CFR Part 223</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240508-0132]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM49</RIN> <SUBJECT>Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Protective Regulations for the Oceanic Whitetip Shark (Carcharhinus longimanus)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule; request for comments; notice of availability of a draft environmental assessment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, NMFS, are proposing to issue protective regulations under section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for the conservation of the threatened oceanic whitetip shark ( <E T="03">Carcharhinus longimanus</E> ). The proposed regulations would apply all of the prohibitions listed under ESA sections 9(a)(1)(A) through 9(a)(1)(G) for the species, with limited exceptions for scientific research and law enforcement activities that contribute to the conservation of the species. In addition, we are announcing the availability of a draft environmental assessment (EA) that analyzes the environmental impacts of promulgating these regulations. Finally, we solicit comments from the public and all interested parties regarding this proposed rule and the draft EA. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on this proposed rule must be received by July 15, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> A plain language summary of this proposed rule is available at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/NOAA-NMFS-2023-0117.</E> You may submit comments on the proposed rule, identified by NOAA-NMFS-2023-0117 by the following method: • <E T="03">Electronic Submissions:</E> Submit all electronic comments via the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal. Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and enter NOAA-NMFS-2023-0117 in the Search box. Click on the “Comment” icon, complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period, may not be considered by NMFS. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted for public viewing on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name and address), confidential business information, or otherwise sensitive information submitted voluntarily by the sender will be publicly accessible. NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter “N/A” in the required fields if you wish to remain anonymous). The proposed rule and other reference materials regarding this determination are available electronically at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/oceanic-whitetip-shark#conservation-management.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Adrienne Lohe, NMFS Office of Protected Resources, 301-427-8442. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The prohibitions listed under section 9(a)(1) of the ESA automatically apply when a species is listed as endangered, but not when a species is listed as threatened. In the case of a species listed as threatened, the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) shall issue such regulations as deemed necessary and advisable to provide for the conservation of the species (16 U.S.C. 1533(d)). The Secretary may by regulation prohibit with respect to any threatened species any or all acts prohibited under section 9(a)(1). Section 9(a)(1) of the ESA prohibits any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from: (a) importing any such species into, or exporting any such species from the United States; (b) taking any such species within the United States or the territorial sea of the United States; (c) taking any such species upon the high seas; (d) possessing, selling, delivering, carrying, transporting, or shipping, by any means whatsoever, any such species that was illegally taken; (e) delivering, receiving, carrying, transporting, or shipping in interstate or foreign commerce, by any means whatsoever and in the course of commercial activity, any such species; (f) selling or offering for sale in interstate or foreign commerce any such species; or (g) violating any regulation pertaining to such species or to any threatened species of fish or wildlife (16 U.S.C. 1538(a)(1)). The ESA defines “take” as to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or attempt to engage in any such conduct (16 U.S.C. 1532(19)). The term “harm” is defined in our regulations as any act which kills or injures fish or wildlife. Such an act may include significant habitat modification or degradation that results in death or injury of wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, spawning, rearing, migrating, feeding, or sheltering (50 CFR 222.102). The term “harm” is used in this proposed rule as defined in the regulations. The final rule to list the oceanic whitetip shark ( <E T="03">Carcharhinus longimanus</E> ) as a threatened species under the ESA was published on January 30, 2018, and became effective March 1, 2018 (83 FR 4153). The proposed and final rules to list the species as threatened (81 FR 96304, December 29, 2016; 83 FR 4153, January 30, 2018), the Oceanic Whitetip Status Review Report (Young <E T="03">et al.</E> 2017), and the Draft Recovery Status Review (NMFS 2023) provide extensive information on the status of the oceanic whitetip shark and the threats facing this species. We relied heavily on these documents while developing this proposed rule, and provide a brief summary of the species' status and threats below. The oceanic whitetip shark is a highly migratory, pelagic species distributed in tropical and subtropical waters globally. The species is relatively long-lived, and has low to moderate productivity relative to other shark species. Although the oceanic whitetip shark is currently thought to consist of a single population, some population structuring ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> genetic differentiation between population segments) is evident, particularly between the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific (Ruck 2016; Camargo <E T="03">et al.</E> 2016). Historical fisheries data and observations suggest that the species was once among the most common and ubiquitous shark species in tropical waters around the world (NMFS 2023). More recently, however, numerous lines of evidence from all three major ocean basins (Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans) suggest that the oceanic whitetip shark has experienced significant historical declines of varying magnitudes over the past several decades, and that these declines are likely ongoing (NMFS 2023). Rigby <E T="03">et al.</E> (2019) estimated a median global population reduction at 98-100 percent over three generation lengths (61.2 years). This is the only global trend estimate available for the oceanic whitetip shark. The following threats have been identified as contributing to the threatened status of the species: incidental bycatch in commercial fisheries (particularly pelagic longlines (PLL), purse seines, and gillnets), international trade of oceanic whitetip shark fins, and inadequate regulatory mechanisms (management) to address these threats. There are several other stressors that are of lesser concern but that may work synergistically to negatively affect the population viability of oceanic whitetip sharks ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> effects of climate change, pollutants, recreational fisheries). In our listing determination for the species we concluded that, within the jurisdiction of the United States, regulations to control for overutilization of oceanic whitetip sharks in U.S. waters, including fisheries management plans with quotas and trip limits, species-specific retention prohibitions in PLL gear, and finning regulations, were not in and of themselves inadequate such that they were contributing to the global extinction risk of the species (81 FR 96304, December 29, 2016). Further, NMFS has recently added the oceanic whitetip shark to the prohibited retention list for all U.S. Atlantic shark fisheries (89 FR 278, January 3, 2024). However, retention of oceanic whitetip sharks is not prohibited in all gear types or fisheries, and other forms of take beyond retention are not prohibited. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Application of Section 9 Prohibitions to the Oceanic Whitetip Shark</HD> Based on the preceding information, we are proposing to apply all of the prohibitions listed under ESA sections 9(a)(1)(A) through (G) to the species, with limited exceptions. This will contribute to the conservation of the species by ensuring that the United States is not impeding the recovery of the species. We are proposing limited exceptions to the prohibitions on import, export, and take; these limited exceptions are more fully described in the next section. Section 9(a)(1)(A) prohibits the import and export of endangered species to or from the United States. The international shark fin trade was identified as a significant threat to the oceanic whitetip shark in both the final listing of the species (83 FR 4153, January 30, 2018) and the Draft Recovery Status Review (NMFS 2023). Although the oceanic whitetip shark is not generally targeted in fisheries, the high value of oceanic whitetip shark fins creates an incentive for opportunistic retention and finning of oceanic whitetip sharks when caught, and is the main economic driver of mortality of this species in commercial fisheries throughout its global range. The United States makes up a small proportion of the global shar ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 54k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━